restricted his movement, Jiránek was limping, and the defence as a whole had hardly trained in the week leading up to the game. But it was that defence, and particularly Foster, who won the man of the match award for the second time in three years, who prevented Arsenal from taking advantage. With seven minutes left of normal time, Obafemi Martins replaced Fahey for his League Cup debut. After 89 minutes, Foster cleared the ball long, Žigić touched it on, and when Laurent Koscielny attempted to play it, distracting Szczęsny from making what should have been a straightforward gather, the ball fell loose to Martins in front of goal. He tapped it into an empty net for what he called "the easiest goal I've ever scored in my career", and celebrated with his trademark somersaults, although not the ten he had promised. For the remaining few minutes, Birmingham defended stoutly, but Martins had a fine chance to increase the lead when he took the ball past Johan Djourou and the goalkeeper but found himself with too narrow a shooting angle. Jerome, who had come on during stoppage time, and Ferguson were both booked for time-wasting as Birmingham held on to win their first major trophy for nearly 50 years. Transfers At the end of the 2009–10 season, Birmingham released first-team players Gary McSheffrey, Grégory Vignal, Franck Queudrue and Lee Carsley, and chose not to sign loanee Christian Benítez on a permanent basis. Goalkeeper Joe Hart returned to parent club Manchester City, to be replaced by Birmingham's first signing of the new season, Manchester United's Ben Foster, who joined for an estimated initial fee of £4 million. Next to arrive was striker Nikola Žigić, who signed from Valencia shortly before joining up with the Serbian national team at the World Cup. After young Spanish midfielder Enric Vallès joined on a one-year contract and Matt Derbyshire returned to England on loan from Olympiacos, there were no more signings until transfer deadline day, when Barcelona midfielder Alexander Hleb arrived on a season-long loan and Chilean winger Jean Beausejour and Spartak Moscow captain and defender Martin Jiránek agreed permanent deals. Jordon Mutch joined Championship club Watford on an initial one-month loan, later extended until January 2011, and several fringe players left on loan. Garry O'Connor had two separate loan spells at Barnsley, initially to regain match fitness after injury, but was released in December